Title V Abstinence Funding Expires

Special Report - July 1, 2009
June 30 marked the end of Title V funding from the federal government for abstinence education programs, meaning that these programs must now look elsewhere for funding. Title V provided $50 million a year in block grants to states exclusively for the teaching of abstinence education, and North Carolina typically received about $1.2 million of these funds.

“Unless the state of North Carolina steps in with funding, local school districts will have to fund abstinence education themselves,” said Bill Brooks, president of the North Carolina Family Policy Council. “We hope that local school districts will continue to look at the sound principles and good results of abstinence training and continue the program.”

The 2010 budget from the Department of Health and Human Services “eliminates funding for Community-Based Abstinence Education [and] the mandatory Title V Abstinence Education program.” The budget also eliminates funding for discretionary abstinence education. With the expiration of Title V abstinence funds and the 2010 budget from President Obama eliminating abstinence funding, future federal funding for abstinence education seems unlikely.

According to the budget, funds previously allocated for abstinence will be redirected to fund teen pregnancy prevention. Cheryl Wetzstein, in The Washington Times, writes that “there’s a tug of war going on between comprehensive-sex-education advocates and teen-pregnancy-prevention advocates over the mission of the new program.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, noted that “the price society pays for premarital sex is far more than teen and out-of-wedlock births. Even those who avoid the consequences of sexually transmitted disease and teen pregnancy still suffer negative psychological ones like decreased marital satisfaction and higher rates of depression.”

Copyright © 2009. North Carolina Family Policy Council. All rights reserved.